


For What Are They But Creatures Choking On Teeth

by BrokeTheLights



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Contemplation of the meaning of life, Dentists, Do not take that lightly, Driving, F/F, F/M, FBI Agent Kamal Bora, First-Chapter death, Flowers, Flowery Imagery, Forests, God I love this Au so much, Heavy use of laughing gas, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, See No Evil AU, Serial Killer Boris Habit, Serial Killers, Teeth, There is a REASON this fic is tagged 'graphic', graphic removal of teeth, so much blood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23931241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokeTheLights/pseuds/BrokeTheLights
Summary: I've seen the See No Evil AU (kiingcorobo and his anons truly are somethin, eh?) and I ran with it, I have honestly no idea how far it'll go.Dr. Boris Habit works a lovely little dental business as a day job, but every so often he simply can't control himself, not when there's children involved. Agent Kamal Bora is an FBI special agent and one of the best on the force, but absolutely hates his job and, just his luck, gets assigned one of the hardest serial killer cases the FBI have seen in a long, long time.
Relationships: Kamal Bora/Dr. Boris Habit, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	For What Are They But Creatures Choking On Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Dr. Boris Habit, as he goes through the routine of a late-evening appointment at his personal dental business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I do hope you like this fic, but while I have tagged it pretty heavily it's for a good reason. Do try to keep yourselves safe and don't read this if you can't handle graphic depictions of teeth removal or anything to do with throat stuff. The first chapter is really heavy on this, but I promise it's not gonna all be blood and gore, there will also be a solid sad storyline! Because we gotta get them feels somewhere. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

It had been a long day, and Dr. Boris Habit was moving around his dental offices as he tidied up when he heard his last appointment enter his front door. The sun was setting, half the lights were off, and all the other people who worked at Dr. Habit’s little dental business had gone home, but Habit had specifically asked this particular patient to come in at that time. The patient had really wanted to get his appointment over and done with within the next 24 hours after he’d called, and Habit hadn’t been able to squeeze him in until the very end of his work day. Habit smiled as nicely as he could. He was busy most of the time anyways, and he’d discussed both of their schedules over the phone, which ended up meaning that that late hour was simply beneficial for the both of them. Plus, his large, long mass of insanely curly auburn hair was already tied up and his scrubs were always messy anyways by the end of the day, what was a little extra work? That at least was what Habit used to justify his late appointment to the last of the hygienists as they left the premises.

The patient, a Mr. Petar Borch Cvijet, had mentioned offhandedly over the phone that he would be bringing his child, young little Rosy Cvijet, because he wasn’t able to find babysitting at the hour Dr. Habit wanted him in. He’d talked about how frustrating the little girl could be, how Rosy sometimes made him so mad when she complained and whined like how she had when he’d told her she’d be joining him to the dentist, but right then she just needed to be taken care of before she could go be with her mother for a week. The doctor had heard this story from Mr. Cvijet before, had even looked into the mother in question, and had been happy with the results, though a little confused as to why the pair had separated. Of course, he’d never brought up the question. Habit suspected that there were reasons for why the man couldn’t find a babysitter as the doctor entered the waiting room and greeted Mr. Cvijet, but generally pushed these thoughts aside as he made the visit as professional as possible. Though his eyes were stuck on the father as he signed some final papers for the man, tucked them away into his white dental coat and discussed in more detail what Mr. Cvijet wanted done with his teeth, Habit couldn’t help but notice out of the corner of his eyes the blood that still dripped lazily from Rosy’s nose as the girl huddled up in a chair she’d chosen in the waiting room. He’d noticed her nose bleeding when Mr. Cvijet had brought her along before.

Finally, Habit gently told Rosy that she was to occupy her own time until he was done with her father as Mr. Cvijet waited impatiently, then he took the man into the dental operatories. As he opened the relatively thick door to the back operating room, Mr. Cvijet hesitated.

“Quite the room you, eh, have for this kind of thing,” he chuckled a little uneasily, and a bit of his seemingly Croatian accent slipped into his speech, “doo you do all your root canals in here?”

“Oh ye-es,” Habit replied kindly, his own deep, Russian-tinted voice almost soothing the other considerably smaller man, “I maid it myself, acktually. I’ts sound-proof, so eye do’nt’ hav to be bothred by the souunds of Other patients, tho I suppose itt wuldent hav been anan issue @ this tiime… but ah! All of my ee-quip-ment is iin here Anyways :-) so, justte step inside, Mr. Cvijet, and wel’l get right on with hte pro-sea-dure, and u can get back to yor daughter, hmm?”

Mr. Cvijet nodded, and made his way over to the dental chair. He sat down on one of its sides as Habit walked in after him and closed the door, and didn’t seem to notice when the doctor locked it behind himself. The door gave a subtle satisfactory click, and Habit smiled a little more. The patient then turned to look at Habit with weary, tired eyes.

“I’ve, ah…” Mr. Cvijet paused as he fidgeted with the edge of the chair, “I’ve always had an, uhm, a nervousness around medical professionals, you know, and I’m, ahh…”

Habit put a hand up, and turned away from his patient to move over to a large machine off to one side of the room. “Right, of coarse. Do’nt worry about a thingk. Itl’ll all be Over in a matter of minutss, after witch u wont evn rememember why u were scared! Just take a deeeeeep breath…”

The doctor then secured a small oxygen mask over his mouth and nose as he turned the machine on. It began to make a light whirring noise, and almost instantly, tiny vents in the walls began to pump out a thick, semi-clear gas that filled the air and seemed to replace the oxygen in a matter of seconds.

Mr. Cvijet did as he was told, and immediately began to slump against the side of the chair. Habit quickly made his way over to the patient before he was able to fall all the way down to the floor off the chair, then positioned him so that he was properly seated. Mr. Cvijet’s eyes began to flutter, and Habit moved back to the machine and turned it off. The air felt heavy against his skin, but Habit paid it no mind as he focused on Mr. Cvijet. The doctor would never be caught huffing the stuff even if his life depended on it, the composition was much too thick for his liking whenever he got work done on his own teeth, and put him much too out of it for far too long.

“Ahhhaha,” Mr. Cvijet mumbled softly, a small, crooked smile growing on his features as he tried to find Habit’s face through his drooping eyelids, “ooh, I feel so liiiightt…”

“Ye-es, I wood hope so,” replied Habit just as softly, “this laughing gas is goign to take a-way just enouf pain for u not 2 struggle to hard. Just stay relaxed wile eye work on u, ok? It woudd be a shame if thee coroner found bruises A-round ur limbs thaat match my rest-rain-tss, now, wul’dn’t ‘it’?”

Mr. Cvijet’s eyes widened a little, but he processed Habit’s words a little too late, as straps clamped down around his wrists and ankles just as he was about to sit up again. He panicked a little, Habit could see it in his eyes, but he made no other move to try and escape as the gas began to fill his mind. The laughing gas was a specially-made chemical compound that Habit himself had put together, and he took great pride in it - it was near untraceable after one’s death, as it evaporated from within their system as though it had never been there, and it left little to no damage on the internal structure of a person’s respiratory system, though this also meant that it was unable to kill someone by itself, which was a bit of a bummer. It was the perfect gas, and it was solely Habit’s to use.

Dr. Habit hummed in appreciation of his creation, then gave Mr. Cvijet a wide grin that made him close his eyes, though the patient wouldn’t have been able to see it past the gas mask. “Now, then, im gonig too have two ask u 2 open wide!… ”

The doctor looked over at the small wheel table that carried all his tools nearby, then grabbed a pair of relatively large straight-beaked forceps. He examined it for a couple seconds as Mr. Cvijet began to lightly pull against the restraints, checking to make sure they were clean and operational. Once he decided that they were, Habit glanced back at the patient as he reached for a pair of plastic surgical gloves. He found a look of mild fear in the man’s features, though Habit could only barely tell through the look of haziness that had taken over Mr. Cvijet’s face. Deciding that the time for hemming and hawing was over, Habit snapped on his gloves, gripped his forceps with conviction, and grabbed Mr. Cvijet’s bottom jaw to pry open his mouth with his massive, clawed hand. Mr. Cvijet made an unbecoming sound at the contact.

“O, do’not be liek that,” Habit cooed as he brought his forceps nearer, “thissll onlny hurt once I begin, no need to start screemign just yet.”

Then finally, Habit pinched one of Mr. Cvijet’s top front teeth - number 11, a voice in the back of Habit’s mind supplied - with the beak of his tool, and once he was very comfortable, began to pull. Mr. Cvijet tensed, though he still seemed extremely out of it, and Habit smiled a little more. The doctor gave a small, gentle tug, testing the strength of the tooth and the grip of the beak for a second, then gave one hearty, powerful yank. With a sickening _pop!_ the tooth came out without incident.

Habit had been a certified dentist for a long while, and had plenty of experience when it came to patients fighting back against care, or patients vocalising distress when he hadn’t given them enough anesthetisa. However, he found a particular glee when it came to hearing his patients scream, especially when he intended to turn them into victims. Mr. Cvijet did not disappoint in that regard, for as soon as his first tooth was removed, he screamed like he’d been chased off a cliff by a massive red bull, high and fearful and absolutely full of pain. As Habit let go of his jaw, Mr. Cvijet pulled against the restraints that tied him down to the chair and arched his back violently, shoving a majority of his torso into the air. Habit tutted as he waited for his patient to relax again and placed the bloody tooth in a small liquid-filled container that sat atop his chair-side table.

“1ce again eye ask u to try and stay relaxed, Mr. Cvijet,” Habit said as sweetly as he could as he deliberated turning the gas on again, “the worst is yet 2 come, and I want u to ‘save’ that Wonderful voice untill the veeeerry end!”

Mr. Cvijet whimpered a little bit, wet and pitiful, and Habit acted as though he hadn’t heard it, savouring every sound that came out of the man. After a couple seconds, Mr. Cvijet’s muscles gave out as the gas worked its magic, and he collapsed against the chair again, panting and sweating and crying like he’d run a marathon. Habit waited a couple more seconds, then grabbed ahold of Mr. Cvijet’s jaw once again and shoved his forceps in, this time going for number 21. The patient tried to twist away, weakly pushed his tongue against the metal in his mouth, but Habit’s grip on him was strong and the tips of his claw-like fingernails dug into the man’s delicate facial flesh around his cheeks and throat enough to get him to stop. The doctor secured his forceps around 21, gave a couple tests that elicited more pathetic whimpering, then once again gave a hard, powerful tug. 21 seemed to give out easier than 11, though it no less forced a blood-curdling scream from Mr. Cvijet’s vocal cords, and Habit hummed a little, slightly disappointed but none-the-less determined.

He realised that the blood from the two brand new gaping wounds in Mr. Cvijet’s mouth were going to drown him if Habit didn’t do anything, and he reached over to his small wheeled table once again, then turned on and took out the saliva ejector. He supposed he should have been prepared for the blood flow, but it had been a little while since he’d acted on his _impulses_ , and he had unfortunately forgotten about the delightfully gorey details in favour of all of the feelings of elation and satisfaction and revenge. As he stuck the saliva ejector in the man’s mouth, gently pushing his bottom jaw closed and waiting for the majority of the blood to get removed, Habit noticed that a bit of blood had already made its way onto his sleeves. He hadn’t planned on getting new scrubs, he thought to himself as he finished with suctioning out the blood, but he supposed it was getting about time. Besides, when was the last time he’d had nice fire kindling like fabric?

Habit continued his process of testing out a tooth then ripping it out with as much force as possible and carefully setting it aside with the growing pile in the container for the rest of the upper jaw, switching out his forceps half-way through and near the end, until just one wisdom tooth remained up top. Mr. Cvijet had attempted to pass out from the pain a number of times, though each time he was rudely awakened once again with his own screams as another tooth was removed, but as Habit took a break to stuff cotton in the man’s brand new wounds and make sure he didn’t bleed out too much, Mr. Cvijet much more solidly fainted. At this point, Habit set his forceps aside and checked the time on the clock that hung on the wall opposite him. He frowned as he saw he’d already spent about forty to fifty minutes playing around with Mr. Cvijet and slowly tearing out his pearly whites, and worried a little that after he was done, it would be far past little Rosy’s bedtime. He wondered if her mother had her on a sleep schedule, then very much hoped she did, as he considered leaving her in the office while he went and completed the final stages of his plans for Mr. Cvijet. Habit would of course make sure she saw none of the blood or teeth that he pulled, but he wanted to get her somewhere safe and secure as quickly as possible so she might be able to sleep happily that night.

The doctor was brought back to the present as Mr. Cvijet groaned a little, his voice gurgling with the blood that continued its attempt to fill his oral cavity. Habit quickly moved to suction it out of his patient’s mouth, taking a fraction of a second to admire the small container of teeth which was now half full, then grinned down at the patient again as he picked up another new set of forceps. Mr. Cvijet didn’t seem to notice until Habit gripped number 41, and yanked it out without the previous foreplay. Mr. Cvijet’s screams were becoming weaker and weaker as Habit went, which frustrated the doctor to no end. He’d told the man that he should save his screams, and now look where his wonton vocal discharges got them?

“Louder,” growled Habit involuntarily, though the word didn’t seem to land in Mr. Cvijet’s mind. Habit grit his teeth, refraining from yelling at his patient, then grabbed ahold of 31.

Mr. Cvijet made no indication that he could feel the pressure of the forceps, but began to groan as Habit gave the tooth a steady slow pull. The groan began to turn into a moan of agony as Habit held down his jaw with one finger and separated number 31 from its socket as slowly as possible. The roots began to give out as though it were a tree being uprooted from a spot of land that it had grown in for centuries, and as blood vessels popped and nerves tore, Habit grinned wider and wider, relishing in every tiny sound it gave, every subtle twist the tooth forced his forceps to dive into as it separated from the jaw bone. Finally, after what must have felt like an eternity to Mr. Cvijet, the tooth came free with another gut-wrenching _pop!_ and a small chunk of fleshy gum, at which point Mr. Cvijet’s voice was truly torn raw.

“Tha’st what happpens when u dont’t do as eye say, Mr. Cvijet,” murmured Habit as he moved on to the next tooth, knowing full well that the man couldn’t understand him in the slightest.

He pulled 42 out just like 41, then stuffed more cotton into Mr. Cvijet’s mouth, and proceeded to do the same with the entire bottom row, taking occasional breaks to suck up all the excess blood and switch forceps. Finally, after what felt like another hour, as his hand began to cramp from holding forceps in the same way for too long, Habit finally sat back and admired his work. All except one of Mr. Cvijet’s teeth were in the doctor’s small container, oozing heavy blood into the bottom of the pile and staining the liquid it was all contained within. The man to whom the teeth had formerly belonged lay near motionless on the operating chair, his rapid, stuttering breath the only indication that he was even still alive. Habit huffed a rough laugh, replaced all the blood-soaked cotton that threatened to stick forever in the patient’s mouth, then moved away from Mr. Cvijet and towards the door as he took off his gloves. He unlocked it, then went through it, allowing the gas to drain out as he left it open and removed his mask. He caught a whiff of his laughing gas, and chuckled a little to himself. Wouldn’t it be funny to be foiled by inhaling his own gas and passing out until someone took notice of the tortured man in the soundproof room?

Habit shook his head, as though erasing the thought. No, no it wouldn’t be, because he wasn’t _done_ , he’d never be done until he had wiped every last creature like Mr. Cvijet and Habit’s own parents off the face of the Earth, making them feel the pain and agony and pure unadulterated fear they made him and all those other little Innocents feel. Of course, there were other layers to Habit’s drive, but he wasn’t in the mood to unearth all those complex things buried deep within him.

He walked tall and collected to the waiting room, where Rosy continued to wait curled up on a chair. When she heard him enter the room, Rosy seemed to shrink in on herself, until she saw that he wasn’t her father. Habit nervously stuck his tongue into the gap in his near-perfect teeth, where one had been knocked out years ago, then gave a reassuring close-lipped smile at the girl.

“Rosy,” Habit said, and he extended a hand over to her which she watched as though he were about to slap her, “can u com heere for a second?”

The little girl nodded quickly, then stood up and with hesitancy moved towards the doctor. Habit smiled down at her, and she seemed to settle for a second when she decided that he was not too much of a threat. For a moment Habit wondered if the blood all over him made it a little harder for her to trust him, but he decided then was not the time for him to think about that. He guided her through the operatories and into a short hallway leading away from them, then showed her into one of his private offices, where a couple of dental models sat in permanent macabre grins. Rosy seemed to take in her new surroundings with something akin to awe, and once she was in the centre of the room, Habit kneeled down before her to be at eye level with the girl.

“Now Rosy,” Habit said, trying to put in a little bit of seriousness in his voice despite feeling very giggly and excited, though he was unsure if it was from the small amount of gas he’d inhaled or simply from the ecstasy he’d gotten hooked on from pulling the last of his patient’s teeth, “eye neede uoo 2 stay here for a leittol wile, ok? Yur father and I have to… settle som thigns before he can b done wiht his ‘App-point-ment’, and yo’ul’l bee all alone. Just don’t tutch anyhting on my desk, and aye’ll be back 4 u when I am done.”

Rosy nodded, still looking around herself with wide eyes, and Habit decided that she would be fine. He moved towards his desk, pulled open a drawer halfway down the left side which held a bag of supplies, took the bag, then shut the drawer and left Rosy alone in the room. The door shut quietly behind him, and he left it without locking it. Sure, if she decided that she wanted to leave the room, she’d probably find something she didn’t like, but Habit was almost positive that he could explain it away as leftovers from doing the kind of job a dentist did, seeing as he’d be sure to secure the soundproof room against any attempt to enter it.

The doctor made his way back to Mr. Cvijet, who lay moaning on the chair as the last of the gas was flushed out by an automatic oxygen pump built alongside the vents in the walls. As Habit’s shoes (a pair of fancy black high heels that he partially wished he’d switched out for normal flats that morning considering the work he was about to do) clicked against the polished floor and announced his arrival back, Mr. Cvijet began to make panicked sounds, which only grew as the strain he put on his bleeding and sore gums doubled. Habit smiled down at the miserable wretch, then shoved his bag onto his arm so it was hanging there and moved to carefully undo the man’s straps.

“Hussshh now Mr. Cvijet,” Habit said quietly, in what he knew was an extremely assuring tone, “u wouldn’t want 2 have ur dauter find uoo liek this, wood u? And your agony is’nt over yet, so ‘just’ keep qu-eye-ette for now, let u’re voice rest…”

With a frown, Habit noticed that there were marks that were displayed clear as day where the restraints had been on Mr. Cvijet’s wrists and ankles, and he sighed to himself. He hoped that such markings wouldn’t get him caught, as it was the one liability that he could never really hide or prevent, though the more he thought about it the more he thought it didn’t matter. He remembered quite a few patients with similar markings on them, too, and the police still didn’t seem to care. Good, he thought, it would be no good for his streak to be over now, not when there were so many _scumrags_ running around waiting for him to crush them between his fingers.

Once the restraints were off, Habit checked to make sure the cotton that was stuffed into where his patient’s teeth had once been wouldn’t allow for leaking out of the mouth, then gripped Mr. Cvijet’s shoulders and hauled him into a seated position. He then quickly wrapped one arm around the man’s middle to pick him up like a sack of potatoes. It took very little effort, and once the smaller man was in a secure grip draped over the doctor’s massive arm, Habit strode from the soundproof room, locked its door with one hand, and left the building from the back where he’d parked his car that morning.

It was a truly gorgeous evening, Habit thought as he pulled out his car key from the bag that dangled off of him. The sun was now completely gone, only the remnants of its light lazily resting on the horizon in glorious pinks, purples and gold remaining as a last show of dying strength. Soon, Habit knew, the stars would come out, shining in the sky like so many satellites waiting for their chance to come back down to Earth. He wondered what it would be like to be lost in the inky nothingness of space, simply drifting through the stars, waiting on nothing, wanting for simply more time with which to ponder. As he unlocked his car and placed his unfortunate companion in the plastic-protected passenger seat, Habit stared up at infinity, then let his eyes drift over towards the moon. He thought about how it had always been the moon that he’d looked up to when he was younger while he was being hurt so bad by those who he thought were supposed to protect him, how he’d blamed that great white disk in the sky for keeping him down when he wished to fly away. It was the moon’s meager light that killed his flowers when it was only nights that he could let them out from under his bed, it was the moon that kept the light of the sun and sky from shining down upon him and his precious plants, it was the moon that called his father into his room when the morning peaked its head over the Eastern skyline after a night of coaxing a couple tulips and lilies to sprout, so far as his young childish mind could fathom. He’d look up and there it was, massive and mocking, as though telling him ‘get over it, there’s nothing you can do’. Nothing he could do his ass, he was able to do many things! As he stood with his hand on the driver’s side car door and his back to his building, he stared up at the moon with an unreadable expression, unsure as to how he should unpack what he felt. He decided that he wouldn’t that evening, and shoved down his raw heart as he looked back down at the Earth, then through his window.

Mr. Cvijet had taken to leaning his head against the unbuckled strap of his seatbelt, and Habit grimaced. It was going to be frustrating keeping him from interfering with driving, but the doctor supposed he could make it work. He just had to remember how he’d done it a number of months ago. Habit finally opened his car door and slipped in, bending down low enough so that he didn’t hit his head on the doorframe and carefully placing his bag in his lap. He snapped the door closed after him, which made Mr. Cvijet stirr, then reached over towards the man, raised his arms from their lax position, and pulled the seatbelt under them. Surprisingly, Mr. Cvijet only gave a couple whines, but otherwise bit his tongue. Habit supposed he should be glad of that, for the man was finally doing what he wanted him to do, but he couldn’t shake the gaze of the moon off of him, so he simply settled into his own seat, did up his own seatbelt, kicked the car into gear, then took off towards a massive old forest just a half hour or two away.

Normally, Habit would have planned a much longer trip, electing to be away for days on end with a patient he kept alive (and unconscious) until he was where he wanted to be and a large handy bag of tools, hoping to keep the prying eyes of the authorities far away from his daytime job, but Mr. Cvijet had forced his hand. There had only been a couple other patients before Mr. Cvijet that Habit had felt he needed to intervene as quickly as possible, only a couple that had him feel the same fantastically sickening high when they died. They’d always brought their kids in with bruises and wounds and a terrified look in their eye, they’d bring them in like that too many times for Habit to plan things out right for them. It was one of the reasons why he’d built that soundproof room, decked it out with all the things he’d need for an appointment and a quick run to a far away forest. Mr. Cvijet somehow seemed different even than those few however, Habit thought as he carefully turned off the highway and onto a connecting road headed towards the woods. He’d brought his daughter into every single appointment, as though determined to keep her at his side and within his evil grasp. At least now she’d finally be rid of his horrible shadow, even if a new one was to carefully watch her from a safe distance and make sure she was okay.

Soon the forest swallowed Habit’s small car without the doctor noticing, and it wasn’t until he was crawling around the public parking lot making circles in the dirt that his mind came back to him. He startled a little bit, shocked at how fast he’d gotten to his destination, then shook himself and got to work. It would do neither him nor his patient any good to dilly dally, so he promptly picked up his bag again, got out of his car, and moved over to the passenger side.

It took a bit of a struggle and a fair amount of blood being splattered all over the plastic chair covering, but Habit managed to wriggle his arms around Mr. Cvijet, undo the man’s seat belt, and once again get him over his arm after some adjusting of the soiled cotton. Once he had a hold of Mr. Cvijet, Habit shut the car door, locked the vehicle, then began his trek to the heart of the forest.

The twitterings and chirps of the late-night birds gave a subtle life to the trees, and as the clear, clean air filled his lungs, Habit wondered what a different life would have been like. The quiet groaning of the man on his arm as he drifted off into uneasy rest kept Habit from thinking too hard, but he still wondered, and as he found a small darkened glade at the base of an ancient oak tree that he figured would be the best place to finish, Habit questioned where he would be if he’d been anyone else.

Habit gave one final hard shake of his head, then began to set up. He just had to focus on the task at hand, it shouldn’t be this difficult. He was good at this, and it was for a brilliant reason, he just had to get his head back in the game! Habit propped Mr. Cvijet against the trunk of an old oak tree, its roots forming the perfect dip for the man to lean into, and set his bag aside. Habit then slapped the other hard enough to wake him up, his claws digging into his cheeks by accident and drawing a little bit of blood. Hmm, thought Habit, he would really need to look into getting claw guards, or perhaps find a number of mechanical pencils that he didn’t mind wasting the erasers of.

Mr. Cvijet groaned, and his eyes fluttered, then stayed mostly open, though he looked far from lucid. Habit grinned, and Mr. Cvijet’s eyes widened just a fraction as he tried to squirm away like a maggot waiting for a bird to strike.

The doctor dug into his small bag, then pulled out a scalpel and a set of forceps. Mr. Cvijet didn’t seem to comprehend what was being laid out in front of him, but he fought back ever so slightly when Habit grabbed his jaw again and shoved his forceps in for the final time. The wisdom tooth at the back of Mr. Cvijet’s mouth was tricky to get a hold of, and even in the dental chair Habit found them some of the most difficult to remove properly. He wasn’t going for ‘properly’, however, he was aiming for excruciating, while still managing to keep the tooth intact. Mr. Cvijet’s screams filled the silence of the darkened forest as fresh blood began to pour out of his mouth along with the already messily clotting blood that oozed from his mouth and nose. Habit didn’t recall when the man had gotten a nosebleed, but he was glad to see it on him. Perhaps it would make seeing Rosy with one a little easier.

Habit shushed Mr. Cvijet to the best of his abilities. “Come now, Mr. Cvijet, u do’nt want to call hte wolv-es to an eesiy dinner jutst yet, do u? They’l’l find yuo in kno timee aneeways, so what’is the rush?”

Mr. Cvijet groaned in response, and Habit grinned, then picked up his scalpel. He examined it for a second, admiring how shiny and thin it was, then in one swift movement sliced the man’s throat as deep as he could without hitting bone. Mr. Cvijet immediately began to gag and choke, his hands attempting to claw at where the incision was made to close it up. However, Habit grabbed his flailing arms and pinned them down with one hand, then picked up his forceps once more with the other, the tooth still gripped at the end. He carefully inserted the tooth into the incision, using the shape of the forceps to open up the cut more than it wanted to go, and left the wisdom tooth - number 28 - in the middle of his airway. Habit then removed the forceps and let go of Mr. Cvijet, watching as blood rushed from his throat onto the old oak’s roots. The man fell over, scratching at his neck and only worsening his brand new wound. His empty, raw gums bumped together from time to time as Habit removed the soaked-through cotton again, though he refrained from replacing it, and stood up to watch the man below him die in pathetic torment.

It took a couple minutes of watching and waiting with a strangely empty mind and a nice numbingly euphoric feeling in his chest, but once he was sure the man was dead, that his life had all but drained from his teeth and throat, Habit packed up his things and removed any trace of himself from the scene that he could find, then any trace he thought a detective might be able to track. More major connections, like dental records, papers, texts and emails, and friends of the recently deceased could be dealt with later. At that moment, the doctor simply turned around and left the body to rot, his satchel under his arm, his heels clicking and clattering against ancient roots, and the thought of fixing up the brand new teeth that sat moist and alone in his office drifting into his brain with a giddy feeling. Habit didn’t look back, though he never did, and marveled at just how many _things_ he’d given that exact same treatment to, how many forests had, at their hearts, a creature of evil and despair decaying and giving back to their luscious cycles of life. He hoped he would be able to wash the blood off his arms and face that evening enough that it wouldn’t look too suspicious when his workers came back in the next day. Maybe Rosy would comment on how he looked like he was the one who got murdered. Habit chuckled a little to himself, already thinking of an explanation that he could feed the girl to negate her suspicions.

A breeze picked up that shuffled the leaves near his feet, and Habit shivered, then pulled his scrubs tighter to himself. His long, long hair was pushed around by the gentle force, and he willed himself to walk faster. His heels clicked and clattered against the rough forest path as he picked up his pace, threatening to break at the slightest wrong step he took. He could feel something, not the dead and damned Mr. Cvijet but something else, creeping up on him, wishing something of him. He could feel its cold joy in the wind, smiling just for him, he could feel its menace in the very air. He dared not go any faster for fear of inciting rage, but he silently begged for the distance between him and the trees around him to not diminish. Silence and the judging gaze of nocturnal animals simply followed his hurried steps, thinking not what mindgames threatened to pull him apart at the seams.

Then suddenly he stopped, but dared not turn around. It was just a subtle gust, a quiet whistle, a nearly silent whisper. He was running before he could fully process it.

He was back in his car before he even knew it, speeding down the highway, and he gripped the steering wheel with a crushing grip as he shook himself and unintentionally thought about what he’d just done, _really_ thought about it, with far too much lucidity (though not of course before glancing in his rear view mirror and checking that his bag was safely in the backseat, which it was). He’d been trying to move away from that, he thought to himself, he had been trying to get _clean_. Maybe give everything a new start, go see relatives who had been nice to him when he was young, make a couple friends at the florists shop just down the way from his building- 

No. He stopped that train of thought before it went too far. No, he’d never have been able to run away from his feelings, his emotions, his _impulses_ for very long, and if he never relieved himself he knew he’d just end up hurting someone innocent. Maybe even that nice florist that came by from time to time with vibrant new flowers which eventually withered and died on his countertop and were added to the potting soil pile out back. And it’d be a crying shame if the kid there got hurt or worse, though it wasn’t as though anyone would find the young body under all the beautiful life that they would be pushing up. Pulling himself too taut had happened once when he was younger, when he couldn’t figure out why he felt the things he did or had the impulse to run something living through with a pointed screwdriver over and over and _over_ again whenever his father got angry and aggressive and _oh so sharp and painful_ after finding his tiny secret bedroom gardens. It had been like a shadow had suddenly overtaken his soul when that same _fucking_ girl Martha mocked him for the _last time_ , and he could still feel her flesh breaking under his sharp, horrible claws as his insides _fluttered_ with glee and numbness, and her screams which ricocheted around the classroom, oh her _screams_ -

Habit shook out of his memories before he veered off the road and got himself killed. He couldn’t think about that, he simply had to get back to his offices and pick up Rosy. Habit was sure Rosy would be really wanting to go home at that point, it was much too late and she had to be getting tired. The doctor hoped he wouldn’t have to wake her up, he always felt so bad when the children looked so peaceful. Oh well, he thought, what has to be done has to be done. A grin broke out on his face as he considered the two-sided meaning of that, considered the teeth that he would find immense pleasure in organising into perfect rows and keeping perfectly safe and the idea that many more perfect rows would join these new ones in his collection. He giggled a little, then chortled, and his chortling grew into chuckling, then laughing, cackling, howling, until he was full-on roaring with laughter. Rosy was safe! What a day to be alive, what a time to exist! There was nothing he could do but laugh and laugh like there was no tomorrow, like the lights he ran weren’t red and the shop we worked in wasn’t a dentist and the man he killed wasn’t human but rather simply some poor little girl’s absolute worst nightmare.

His car rolled up to the back of the office as he continued to raw his throat with the explosion of emotion he somehow managed to drive through, his cheeks soaked with tears and his hands and legs shaking so much he couldn’t open his door. He took a moment as he sorted himself out again, coming down from his high with a snicker and a titter and a light little chirrup, then realised he hadn’t parked in quite the same place, so put the car into gear and tried again. He was monumentally glad that Mr. Cvijet hadn’t driven to his appointment, because Habit really didn’t want to go back to the forest just to pick up some car keys. He was already feeling the ravaging aftereffects of a night like this, he didn’t want to be forced to feel more by going back. He just wanted to take care of Rosy and enjoy his brand new set of teeth.

Habit finally exited his car with his bag in hand, making sure to not bump his head on the doorframe, then moved again to the passenger side and opened the door. He examined the plastic chair covering, watched as one lazy drop of blood slowly made its way down the side of it, then began to carefully take it out. He made sure to fold it up on itself, so that none of the blood on it had a chance to come into contact with any other place on the car, then slipped it out and carried it into the building, the lock of the car giving a loud _beep!_ as he walked away.

The doctor put the plastic and his bag in the soundproof room with all the other damning evidence pieces, promising himself that he would deal with all of it after Rosy was gone. He then turned and walked steadily towards his office, and cracked the door open, hoping to see the girl still in there. To his relief, he spotted Rosy on his office spinny chair, standing on her tip-toes as she reached for something he couldn’t quite see atop one of his shelves. He watched for a couple seconds as the amusement of the situation failed to escape him, until it seemed like Rosy might fall, at which point he intervened.

“Hey ther kiddo~!” Habit grinned as he opened the door further and strode in, his heels making a ruckus on the floorboards in the room as Rosy panicked and almost fell again. “Hey hey, ists okay! Iv’e got u-”

Immediately, Rosy began to fall from her tedious perch, and Habit rushed forward. The little girl fell right into his outstretched arms and she gave a little screech as she landed, but Habit only smiled down at her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been up in such a dangerous place, but at the same time Habit would admit that he hadn’t given her anything for distraction. He shrugged it off, however, and set her safely on the ground.

“Hell-o again, Rosy,” he said softly so he didn’t continue to frighten her, “it’is time 2 go home. R you red-ee for a ride with me?”

Rosy frowned, but didn’t object. Instead, she gave a small nod, then followed Habit out of the room and out the back of the building. The doctor noticed that he still hadn’t managed to put the car back exactly where it had been the first time, and gave a small frown himself, frustrated that he’d let that detail escape him. What else had managed to escape him? If he was able to get on the case that the local authorities were surely going to conduct, he should try to look for what he could have missed, back there in the woods, just in case… but that was, once again, thinking for a different time. Right then he had to focus on Rosy.

They clambered into Habits car, the doctor once again taking the driver’s seat and Rosy scooting into the back seat far enough to be in the middle. They then took off, and Habit could feel the tense energy in the air, the nervousness that Rosy emanated, as she sat back there with her knees in her chest and her eyes downcast. As Habit looked back at her through the rearview mirror, however, she brought her eyes up to meet his, and she swallowed a little before she broke the silence of the car.

“M-mister Habit?” she asked, her voice timid and frail, and he was a little shocked that her accent was stronger than what her father’s had been.

Habit squeezed the steering wheel a little as her voice rang in his head, and he wondered what the specifics were that made her speak with such a scared note in her tone. He looked back at the road, then tilted his head a little to one side.

“Ye-es, sweet girl?”

Rosy was silent for a second, and Habit thought she wouldn’t respond. Then she spoke up again.

“Did you do something to tata?” she asked, and Habit could hear a little waver in her voice, as though she were about to cry. Habit’s eyebrows pinched in a subtle worried frown, but he shook his head.

“I treeted him, and made suree his teeth wer allll nice & seh-cure, which made him very habby. He was sooo happy, in fact, and sooo pleased with my work, that ‘he’ decideded to ggo do whatevr it was he wanted 2 do without u there for hiim to have too care 4, and hhe left u in my charge. But don’t’ Worry, I’m bringign u to yur mama, and uoo can tell her that u w’ont have to sea ‘tata’ anymore. :-)”

The girl looked like she was going to smile for a second, but seemed to repress it at the last second in exchange for a small frown. Habit’s hands squeezed tighter around the steering wheel, and he nearly managed to crash. She shouldn’t feel the need to hide her smile, her father was finally _gone_. He wanted oh so desperately for her to smile for him, show him her tiny little teeth, but he tried to keep his cool.

“But,” Rosy managed, “mama said that she had to take a promise when she became a doctor, ‘nd she said that because of that she would never hurt another person. She promised she wouldn’t so she never will. And if you somehow convinced tata to not see us anymore then you must have hurt him some way, but you’re a doctor so isn’t that against your promise?”

The doctor considered her words for a second, mulling them over and picking his words very carefully. “Well, some-times, as a ‘dent-est’, eye have 2 hurt people a littol to make them beter. Im’ sure you’are old enouf two no all about pee-pole havign too get there teeth pulled, right? Or getign cavities filled? That hurts them, but soemtiimes it has to happen too save them from mmuch more pain in the futuure. Do u understand?”

Rosy hesitated for a second, then nodded slowly. “I-i think I do…”

Habit gave her a bright open-lipped smile, and relaxed his grip on the wheel. The little girl looked up at him with wide, shiny eyes, then she gave him a small grin, showing off all her pretty, precious baby teeth. Habit’s smile got somehow wider, then he turned back to the road. He loved her teeth and her smile, as much as he loved the teeth he collected from her father, and he hoped that one day, when they fell out and were replaced with new ones, she’d either remember him and give them to him, or put them to good use somehow. Perhaps one day, she too would become a dentist, just like him.

Well, maybe not _just_ like him. He hoped he’d helped dissuade her from becoming the kind of person he was, at least a little, hopefully made her life a little better. He’d heard the phrase ‘fucked up in the head’ used against him before, same as ‘psychopath’, ‘lunatic’ and ‘maniac’, though he kind of personally enjoyed when ‘fucking looney’ squeezed its way out of his victims’ broken and bloodied maws. It was almost funny, listening to the way they slobbered over their Fs and pressed out more blood on their Ls, hurting themselves more just to try and take a jab at him. But ‘fucked up in the head’ was used especially by his parents in their final moments. God, had he ever thoroughly enjoyed tearing out their teeth, though of course it had been a lot more messy with them than anyone else, their blood getting everywhere and allowing them to die far faster than what Habit had thought they’d deserved. He still had those pretty little teeth, he used them as trophies in his office, where they sat innocently enough like one of those plastic teeth replicas depicting a normal bite with straight, white chompers. Of course every so often he had to brush them or give them little fillings, but most of the time he could simply look at them. No one suspected that those were real teeth, nevermind even get close to assuming they were his parents’, and that was one of the other reasons he loved them so much. They were so perfect as they greeted him with a smile every morning, so much better than the people- _things_ , more like -they had been attached to, and he was glad that they no longer belonged to those bags of fertilizer anymore, but rather to _him_. It may have been a mistake to allow those two to have eternal rest in his backyard under his poppies, and petunias, surrounded by sunflowers and roses and other gorgeous flowers that neither had ever nor ever will deserve, but he was at least happy his plants had enjoyed the nutrients they’d provided.

Habit sighed a little as he was shaken out of his ponderings by a pothole that jostled his car and a subtle little snore from the tiny girl behind him. He focused back on the road as he took a quick turn onto some residential streets, then parked the car outside of one rather nice-looking bungaloo. The doctor didn’t particularly want to wake up Rosy, but he definitely couldn’t walk her up to the door. The mother would know, know _too much_ , and if she threatened to uproot and repot him in some cramped high-security cell, he knew he’d have to find and destroy her, though he would take no joy from it. He wanted Rosy to be happy, and it seemed like she would be when she was around her mother, no thanks to the man Habit had just disposed of.

Finally, after a little deliberation and glances back at her and her calm, sweet face, Habit turned carefully around and reached out one of his long, sharp hands to shake the little girl awake. She spluttered a little, glanced around like she was being hunted, then blearily blinked at him as she pieced together where she was and who was in front of her. She smiled a little, her teeth shining in the subtle light of the car, and Habit couldn’t help but smile a little back.

“W’re here,” the doctor said as he reached over to his door and clicked one of the lock buttons, allowing Rosy to open her door, “at u’r mother’s. Y do’tnt u go In and say hell-o, and Il’l be rigght behinbd u, hm? I’m shore mama will be verie hapby to sea you.”

Rosy’s little smile turned into a brighter grin, her eyes lighting up at the mention of her mother, and she nodded vigorously as she unclipped her seatbelt. “Okay! Thank you very much, Mister Habit, for bringing me to mama! Tata said it was her week three weeks ago, I’m so glad he kept his promise this time!”

Habit’s chest clenched hard enough to elicit a small whine that escaped his throat, but he kept his smile glued to his face. “We-ll, how abouot that. But I haave to ask somtethign of u, Rosy, yu thingk uo’r up two the challenge?”

“I can take anything!” she roared, then laughed when no retaliation came at her.

“Ohkaaay, onlee if u think your’e red-ie,” said Habit, showing perhaps more teeth than was necessary, though Rosy didn’t seem to mind. “U cant’ tell any1 about me, o.k?”

Rosy’s face fell, and she pouted. “What? That’s not fair! Why not?”

“Bee-caws,” Habit said slowly, building anticipation, “not maany peeohple know this, but I’am acktually… the toof fairy! And if u tell aneeone about mee, then eye will cease to egg-ist, and that wood bee bad, no?”

The little girl gasped and covered her mouth, then dropped her hands as her eyes filled with wonder and she whispered, “Really?”

Habit simply nodded with a close-lipped smile, and she gasped again, then made a show of zipping her mouth. He grinned at how easy it was to fool the child into keeping his ‘little’ secret, then patted her on the head, which caused her to burst into gleeful giggles. Habit joined her in giggling for a couple seconds, then nudged her along.

“Now goh, we do’nt want mama too wait, do we?”

Rosy shook her head with as much force as she dared, then hopped out of the car, still giggling. She accidentally slammed her door, but the doctor found it hard to care too much. Habit watched as she ran all the way up to her front door and, still in a happy little fit of giggles, reached up to presumably ring the doorbell multiple times in quick succession. Her persistence seemed to get someone’s attention from inside the house, for the door opened and arms quickly wrapped around Rosy, who in turn gave the door-person what was probably a bone-breaking squeeze. Finally, Habit tore his eyes from the scene as Rosy was scooped up, and before the little girl could point him out to the adult that answered the door, Habit tore off into the night, hoping that he never had to see Rosy with a broken nose and bruises on her arms ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooooooo boy, there we go! Rosy gets off fine and we literally never see her again, as far as I can tell! Unfortunately I do think this'll be where it's at for the next little while because this bad boy isn't my main focus right now in terms of writing, but I will try and get out the next chapter as quickly as possible! In the next chapter, we get to see Kamal!! Thank you for sticking with me, and until next time!


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